Uncomfortable Ideas. Bo Bennett PhD

      Avoiding Manipulation

      Very often, one who presents fringe ideas is well aware of the common objections to the idea and like a good salesperson has crafted answers that address the objections. These answers can be fallacious, flawed, or outright lies designed to get one to buy into the idea. Once a person has accepted the idea, evidence against the idea has less of an effect on them rejecting the idea. This is why it is important to entertain an idea without pressure and have enough time to evaluate the arguments for and against the idea critically. For example, if someone tried to sell you on the idea that the earth was flat, they might claim that the horizon always rises to meet eye level, which is impossible on a ball earth. Not having investigated this, you can be skeptical, but you would really not be able to refute their claim. A few minutes of research, however, would demonstrate that this claim is simply untrue. The point is not to debunk what you have predetermined to be a false claim (this is reactionary thinking, not critical thinking), but to entertain the claims and evaluate them for accuracy.

      The Importance of a Shared Reality

      One unifying force of humanity is our shared reality. Similarities bring people together while differences tend to tear us apart. We are able to thrive as a species because we are a social species, one that is capable of creating a system in which each person’s unique contributions benefit the group. For example, a farmer will raise cows that provide milk, a doctor will help people stay healthy, and a builder will build homes. This kind of system works because we share a common reality where people need food, healthcare, and shelter. This reality is founded on reason, logic, evidence, and experience. But this system breaks down when reason, logic, facts, and evidence are discarded, and experiences are interpreted in heavily biased ways. A group of people who feel that their god wants them to kill those who don’t believe in their god, a group of people who reject facts of science and hinder the kind of scientific advancement that saves lives because it is inconsistent with their beliefs, or a group of political extremists who have been manipulated by emotional arguments, are examples of how personal realities contribute to the suffering of a society. The starting point of cooperation is a shared reality.

      Uncomfortable Idea: In order to live harmoniously with others, when your personal beliefs are in conflict with our shared reality that is based on reason, logic, facts, and evidence, shared reality must take precedence.

      Embracing Uncomfortable Ideas

There is a common misconception that we need to choose between happiness and some of the more “depressing” aspects of reality that are commonly seen as uncomfortable ideas. While I can think of a few cases where this might be the case, humanity is far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. A landmark study published in 1978 demonstrated that lottery winners are no happier and paralyzed accident victims are no less happy a few months after their life-changing events. In addition, the lottery winners were often less happy than they were prior to winning the lottery because they took less pleasure in mundane events.⁵ Unlike being paralyzed, accepting uncomfortable ideas can be relatively benign such as realizing you’re not as good looking as you think. However, they can also be even more devastating, such as realizing that there is no benevolent god looking out for your well-being after spending a lifetime as a devout Christian. Optimists undoubtedly do better embracing uncomfortable ideas because these ideas often involve perspective. To give you a personal example, I spent the first 35 years of my life believing in an afterlife—the comfortable idea that I was going to live for eternity. Then I had to go ahead and start studying philosophy, world religions, and psychology. And if that weren’t enough to turn my worldview upside down, I read the Bible from cover to cover—not just the warm and fuzzy parts. I could no longer believe in an afterlife, and that was difficult for me to handle, but only at first. I am an optimist, and I quickly began to realize that every moment I am alive is now more precious. I don’t have eternity to do things or enjoy time with my family; I just have this life. In the last nine years since that realization I started several business, wrote and published seven books including my memoirs, earned a master’s degree in generally psychology, earned a PhD in social psychology, lost 30 pounds (and kept it off), vacationed in over a dozen countries, accepted a teaching position at a local college, spent a lot of quality time with my wife and kids, and I am currently crossing off the last item on my bucket list—writing a screenplay. Just because an idea is uncomfortable at first, does not mean it will remain uncomfortable.

      The Conscious, Unconscious, Group, and Individual Aspects of Avoidance

      Within the context of avoiding uncomfortable ideas, “avoiding” can refer to a) keeping the idea from entering one’s own thoughts or b) the conscious decision to not think about, investigate, or consider evidence for the idea. We avoid uncomfortable ideas consciously and unconsciously, as groups and as individuals.

      Conscious, Group Avoidance

      Conscious, group avoidance occurs when two or more people deliberately plan to keep themselves and/or others from exposure to or the entertaining of uncomfortable ideas. This kind of avoidance is common with universities, student groups, parents, and activist groups.

According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), since 2000, 82 total invited speakers were unable to speak at a university event because they were either formally disinvited, they voluntarily withdrew, or they were prevented from speaking due to substantial disruption by protesters in the audience.⁶ There are many more speakers who are protested by student or faculty groups who still end up speaking despite the efforts to stop them. Take Michael Bloomberg for example. In 2014, when word got out that he was scheduled as the Harvard commencement speaker, several students protested because of Bloomberg’s policies that they felt discriminated against minorities.⁷ This is a reasonable concern and certainly not unjustified. The problem is, actions, behaviors, and policies are very often a reflection of a person’s beliefs, moral code, and politics. Avoiding exposure to ideas from people whose actions, behavior, or policies we don’t agree with is the same as avoiding them for their ideas that we find uncomfortable. By avoiding these ideas, we are creating an echo chamber environment where principles in group psychology such as groupthink, group polarization, and memory biases all but assure that ideas uncomfortable to the group become even more uncomfortable to that group. For example, group polarization is the phenomenon that when placed in group situations such as student groups or entire student populations, people will form more extreme opinions than when they are in individual situations.

      Uncomfortable Idea: Refusing to allow people to share their ideas, no matter how dangerous you may think their ideas are, can often do more harm than good.

      Parents are well known from shielding their children from uncomfortable ideas. This is called parenting. Although there are as many philosophies to parenting as there are parents, virtually all parents would agree that there are some ideas to which young children should not be exposed. However, too many parents continue to shield their children from ideas throughout adolescence and even into adulthood. They teach their children what to think rather than encourage them to learn how to think for themselves. They teach them what they believe is right and wrong rather than how to determine for themselves what is right and what is wrong. This leads to generations of people